1. Field of the Invention
The disclosure relates generally to application protection systems and methods, and, more particularly to application protection systems and methods providing hardware protection mechanisms.
2. Description of the Related Art
For intellectual property rights protection, some applications offer limited use on specific devices to avoid being copied and used on different hosts. The applications often use hardware protection mechanisms. Conventionally, hardware protection mechanisms integrate with a dongle (keypro) or a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) to avoid applications from being used on different hosts.
For a dongle, verification data such as license information or a serial number corresponding to an application is recorded in the dongle. The dongle couples to a host with installed application. When the application is executed, the application first reads data from the dongle, and determines whether the data in the dongle is valid. If so, the application continues to execute. If not, the application is not allowed to execute. The TPM is installed on the motherboard of a host. The TPM stores a credential or a key. Similarly, the credential or key can be used to determine whether to execute an application.
For conventional application protection mechanisms, the dongle or protection codes in the application are easily removed. Further, the dongle is prone to be lost or taken out by others. Additionally, since TPM request BIOS (Basic Input Output System) support, most current hosts need to constantly upgrade its BIOS to support TPM. Thus, causing inconvenience for users and manufacturers.